


Only the Lonely

by weakinteraction



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Episode Related, F/F, Sad Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-24
Updated: 2019-11-24
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:06:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,085
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21547300
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/weakinteraction/pseuds/weakinteraction
Summary: Sky's POV during Midnight.
Relationships: Sky Silvestry/Sky Silvestry's Ex
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6
Collections: Public Call - Doctor Who fic exchange 2019





	Only the Lonely

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Karios](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Karios/gifts).



_The knocking comes again._

_And again._

_It's coming for her, Sky knows, as she cowers in the wrecked seats._

_And then it comes. It doesn't know who or what she is, it's just attracted to the patterns in her mind, to the very existence of such patterns beyond itself._

_It comes. It's inside her mind, exploring the patterns, turning them inside and out like a burglar ransacking an apartment._

_It has one question: Who are you?_

* * *

Sky settled back in her seat. Luxurious, as ought to be expected for the price they were paying, and as befit the marketing that the Perseus & Orion line always used. She smiled as Irene -- as her _wife_ , it had really happened, they were married now, it hadn't all been a dream or a black market memory trace she'd had the knowledge of requesting blocked -- clasped her hand. They were going to De Grunin's Necklace, and they weren't going to have to think about work or life or anything except each other for three whole weeks.

One of the oh-so-discreet stewards in his uniform that hovered between "retro" and "timeless" padded softly up the aisle. "Mrs Silvestry?" he said 

Sky turned around in her seat. "Yes?"

At the exact same moment, Irene too turned round and said, "Yes?"

They both laughed.

"That's going to take some getting used to," Irene said. "I mean, you're already used to it, aren't you? But for me, it's--"

"Sorry to interrupt, Mrs Silvestry" -- it was clear the steward was addressing Irene now -- "but there's an urgent call for you in the premium lounge."

Irene turned to Sky. "I told them ... Look, this is our honeymoon and we're going to enjoy it. But--"

"It's fine," Sky said. "Take it. I'd do the same if it was my office."

"Only to tell them they've got the sack for ignoring what you'd told them about not being contacted," Irene said with a laugh.

"This way, Mrs Silvestry," the steward said.

Irene made a big show of not realising he was talking to her before following him.

Sky sat in her seat, trying not to think too much about what it meant that after a day she was already used to Irene being Mrs Silvestry, if Irene wasn't.

* * *

_She can hear what the others are saying; she can feel the creature -- no, the presence -- growing in understanding as it thinks her thoughts alongside her, begins to work out how to do more than just control her movements and steal her voice._

_She can hear what the others are saying, and through her the entity can too. Through her the entity can repeat their ideas back, try them on for size._

_The others think that it was her fear -- and oh yes, she had been afraid, of course she had been afraid -- that attracted its attention. But the mirroring of thoughts is a two-way process, and she can begin to perceive the truth: an eternity trapped as a self-consistent pattern of shadows and reflections on the surface of the diamond planet. Has it forgotten its past? Its memories stretch back in time over scales greater than Sky's human mind can fathom, and yet which are beginning to make perfect sense to her. But did it simply spring into existence as this planet cooled from carbon-rich magma, a cruel trick of a universe in which all that is required for consciousness to exist is a certain level of self-referential complexity? Or was it something else, before? One of the losers in some war at the dawn of time? A pioneer turned into a criminal by laws written after the fact? Was it reduced to this state, exiled here by some powerful tribunal that could do such things yet was unwilling -- or unable -- to extinguish it entirely?_

_Sky understands. What the presence felt within her was loneliness._

_The presence tries to understand too, plunges again into her memories. If it has no past of its own, it will plunder hers._

* * *

It happened in the variable-gravity restaurant at the core of Satellite Fifty. Her people had liaised with Irene's people to set it up, which seemed to be the only way they got to spend any time together any more. They were both busy women, after all.

"I think it's for the best if we make a ... a clean break," Irene said, as though she hadn't dropped a zero bomb in the middle of Sky's life and destroyed it completely. "Best for both of us."

"Oh, it is, is it? How is it 'best' for me? You swanning off to another galaxy is hardly--"

Irene sighed. "It's only the Small Magellanic Cloud. It's a _satellite_ of the Milky Way. It's not like I'm going to the Isop Galaxy."

"But it still means I won't see you every day. Or ... or--"

"Yes, Sky," Irene said -- slowly, patiently, with seemingly infinite compassion. It was maddening. "That's what breaking up means."

"But we don't have to break up, do we?"

Tears pricked Irene's eyes, and Sky didn't even know who they were for. "Don't make this any harder, please."

"Just tell me," Sky said, hearing her voice starting to rise and hating that she couldn't bring it back down. "Tell me _why_."

"I need my own space," Irene said.

"You need your own space? What's that supposed to mean?" As soon as she had said it, Sky broke, started to cry.

Irene took Sky's hands in hers. A treacherous part of Sky's mind refused to give up on the idea that this might be some sort of reconciliation. "I love you," she began.

"Then--" Sky interrupted almost immediately.

"It's not enough, Sky. I do still love you, I probably always will. You're like no one else I've ever met. But I don't like ... us. I don't like the way I am when I'm with you, the way I ... have to be."

* * *

_As they look into the terrified eyes of the hostess-- who knows exactly what she is about to do, fully conscious that it will cost her everything -- their thoughts merge into one._

_Sky's physical form will not survive, but her thought patterns will. They will sparkle in the diamonds, until the coruscating sun at last expends its final energies in an enormous cataclysm, hundreds of millions of years hence._

_They have always been lonely._

_They will return to the previous state, cast out into the blistering sunlight, reduced to endless reflection._

_But they will have each other. They will not be lonely any more._


End file.
